It is customary for states to require vehicles to be registered and/or licensed before the vehicles are permitted to be operated on roads that are under the control of the state. The licenses are typically embodied in license plates that are affixed to at least one surface on an exterior of the vehicle. For example, the license plates may be attached to at least one of the front and rear bumpers of the vehicle.
The license plates are typically valid for a limited duration such as one year. For the vehicle to continue to be legally operated on the roads controlled by the state, the license plates need to be periodically renewed. Rather than replacing the entire license plates, many states have adopted procedures that utilize a sticker that is applied to the license plate to show that the registration fees have been paid. For example, the stickers may include a two digit number that corresponds to the last two digits of the year in which the registration is valid.
To ensure that the registrations are only obtained after the appropriate registration fee is paid, it is customary for each state to have an agency or department that issues the vehicle registration.
Even though some states have proposed eliminating the requirement of placing a sticker on the license plate each year to show that the license fees have been paid, these states would likely continue to require the annual payment of the license fees and the possession of a valid vehicle certificate of registration.
In an effort to reduce the cost associated with dispensing vehicle registration documents, it has been proposed to dispense the vehicle registration documents using a vending machine. Several vehicle registration dispensing systems have been developed by IBM, JCM America and Wal-Mart. These systems each have significant drawbacks when compared to the vehicle registration dispensing system of the invention described herein.